13 Sept 2011

EXPERIMENT IN FREE MACHINE EMBROIDERY

In my defense, I've only recently bought a sewing machine and am still getting to grips with it. It took me at least an hour to thread it up and another half hour to get the tension on the bottom bobbin right. In the end I took a photo of the bobbin and pasted it into my sketchbook so I have a visual record of which way the screw head points for this type of machining!

After all that, as you can see, I had trouble getting control of where the needle went. The idea was to sew a couple of circles just inside each fabric patch and then join them all with circular stitching outside of the circles. I think this is going to take as long to master as driving a car! I was a little more happy with the line of circular stitching on the left but I need to think more about stitch length and also buy some more threads so I have something that will show up better. The lines of hand stitching at the top were a breeze in comparison and I used some gorgeous hand-dyed linen thread from Stef Francis again. It varies between purple and orange. Unfortunately the scan (it's easier sometimes than photographing) doesn't pick up the subtle sheen on the thread.

I have so far to go, but I'm so enjoying playing!

4 comments:

  1. Lovely work. You are so creative! and I liked your idea about taking the photo of the bobbin for future reference.

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  2. I think this is very clever, a lovely abstract piece of work, I am impressed!

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  3. It looks great... very creative!! I haven't tried doing freehand sewing yet! Looks like fun!

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  4. It looks lovely! I've recently started some free machine embroidery too, I'm not having a great deal of success at the moment, I always seem to hold my breath and panic about where to stitch next!

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